REEL NEWS

Tom Hanks wants someone to show him the money.

photo: EPA

Jackie Chan (成龍) said Thursday he hopes to finish an animated movie based on him that late Cannes-winning Taiwanese-American director Edward Yang (楊德昌) was working on at the time of his death.

A spokesman for Chan also said Thursday the Hong Kong actor is working on the script for an action movie that he will direct, but denied that it would be the third installment of Chan's Armor of God (龍兄虎弟) series, as reported in Chinese media.

In a blog entry on Chan's Web site Thursday, Chan mourned the death of Yang, who passed away on June 29 from complications from colon cancer.

Chan had been working with Yang on the animated movie The Wind, which revolves around a character inspired by Chan. A spokesman for Chan, Solon So, said the movie was partly finished.

Chan said in his blog he wants to complete the movie.

"I've started to wonder how I would finish The Wind ... . I can't let his (Yang's) efforts go to waste,'' Chan said.

Yang, known for his realistic portrayals of modern Taiwan, won the Cannes Film Festival's best director award in 2000 for Yi Yi (一一),'' a film about a Taiwanese family that copes with the serious illness of their elderly mother.

Spokesman So also denied reports that Chan plans to shoot the third installment of Armor of God. The first two installments revolve around an Indiana Jones-style treasure hunter named Asian Hawk.

Chan suffered one of the worst injuries of his career while filming the first installment, which led to a brain hemorrhage.

Actor Tom Hanks and his wife have joined the star and screenwriter of My Big Fat Greek Wedding in suing a film company behind the 2002 low-budget comedy hit for a share of profits they claim have gone unpaid.

The suit, filed on Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses movie co-financier Gold Circle Films of a lack of transparency in its accounting, leaving writer-star Nia Vardalos, Hanks and his fellow producers uncertain of how much they are still owed.

The court action, which was brought by business entities controlled by Vardalos, Hanks, his wife, Rita Wilson, as well as producer Gary Goetzman, seeks unspecified monetary damages and a full accounting of film profits under court supervision.

In addition to Gold Circle, which is backed by billionaire Norm Waitt Jr, co-founder of Gateway Inc, the suit names Big Wedding Prods and Vortex Pictures as defendants.

In a statement obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, Gold Circle executive Scott Niemeyer called the lawsuit "frivolous" and "completely without merit."

Melville "Mel" Shavelson, who wrote, directed and produced dozens of films with such stars as Lucille Ball, Jimmy Cagney and Frank Sinatra and was twice nominated for Academy Awards, died Wednesday at age 90.

Shavelson died at his Studio City home of natural causes, family spokesman Warren Cowen said.

Shavelson worked as a gag writer for Bob Hope's radio show in the 1930s before going on to write or co-write more than 35 movies and direct a dozen films.

He was nominated for best screenplay Oscars for The Seven Little Foys, the 1956 film that starred Hope as legendary vaudevillian Eddie Foy, and for the romantic comedy Houseboat. He also directed both films.

But making movies was not always the glamorous business many people imagine, Shavelson related in an essay he recently completed commemorating what would have been Ball's 96th birthday on Monday.